Pueblo & southern CO
Powder Coating for Pueblo and Southern Colorado
Production powder coating and mil-spec liquid paint for southern Colorado manufacturers and fab shops, from our Colorado Springs shop up I-25, with pickup and delivery arranged around your job.
A production finisher up I-25 from Pueblo
Our shop is on the north side of Colorado Springs, about 45 minutes to an hour up I-25 from Pueblo, depending on where you start. For manufacturers and fabrication shops in Pueblo, Pueblo West, Cañon City and Fountain, that puts a production powder coating line and a mil-spec liquid paint operation within an easy drive.
We are a family-owned shop with about 20 years in the business, and we are set up for batch work: rolling racks, powder booths and a large batch oven, coating with Cardinal powders. Depending on part size and masking, the line runs roughly 500 to 2,000+ parts a day. Small unmasked brackets are at the high end; large cabinets or parts with a lot of masking come in lower. Small jobs are welcome, but the shop is built for repeat part numbers and production runs.
Who we work with in southern Colorado
Pueblo has made steel for more than a century, and the region is still home to steel and wind-tower manufacturing plus the welding, machining and fabrication shops that supply them. Most of what those shops build needs a finish before it ships. The southern Colorado work we are set up for includes:
- Fabricated frames, brackets, guards and weldments for equipment builders
- Sheet metal enclosures, panels and cabinets
- Machined or cast parts that need threads, bores or mating faces masked
- Defense and government parts painted to a specification flowed down from a prime
If you run a fab shop and want a finisher you can send work to on a regular basis, see how we work with fabricators and welding shops.
Powder and mil-spec liquid under one roof
If a program mixes powder part numbers with a few that call for a liquid topcoat or CARC, we handle both, so you send one RFQ and get one quote and one PO.
- Powder coating. We coat with Cardinal powders, cured typically around 400°F at the part (metal temperature), depending on the powder. Our process is built for metal parts that can be electrically grounded and withstand the cure temperature. More on our production powder coating.
- Mil-spec and government liquid. We have applied CARC topcoats, aerospace epoxy primer and polyurethane topcoat systems, and AMS-STD-595 color matches. For CARC, we apply QPL-listed materials per MIL-DTL-53072.
- Industrial liquid paint for parts or finishes that are a better fit for wet paint than powder.
- Prep in house. Solvent wipe and degrease, multi-stage wash, outgassing pre-bake, masking, plugging and sanding. When a part needs abrasive blasting, we arrange it through our blasting partner as part of the coating job.
- Screen printing after coating. We coat the parts, send them to our screen-print partner, get them back and deliver. It is still one quote and one PO.
We paint to the specification on your drawing or PO and quote to that specification. Tighter specs take more steps, and the quote reflects that.
How pickup and delivery work from Pueblo
We do not run a scheduled route to southern Colorado. Pickup and delivery are arranged per job, based on order size and timing. When you request a quote, tell us:
- Where the parts are coming from and going back to
- Whether you need pickup, delivery or both, or plan to drop off
- Quantity, pallet or bin count, and the heaviest or largest part
- The date you need finished parts back
How the drive in typically works from each part of the region:
| Area | Usual route to our shop | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| Fountain | North on I-25, a short drive | A short drive, so dropping off and picking up yourself is often simplest |
| Pueblo and Pueblo West | North on I-25, roughly 50 miles | Grouping releases into fewer, larger loads keeps trips efficient |
| Cañon City and Fremont County | US-50 east to CO-115, north into Colorado Springs | Tell us early so we can plan around your ship dates |
Drop-offs and pickups at the shop are Monday through Friday, 7:30 AM to 4:00 PM. Standard jobs typically take about a week once parts are here, so build transit time on each end into your schedule.
Getting a long-distance job right the first time
When parts travel roughly 50 miles each way, a misunderstanding costs more than it would at the dock next door. These steps prevent most of them:
- Send drawings and the coating callout before the parts. Include color (Cardinal code, RAL or AMS-STD-595 number), gloss, texture, any film thickness requirement and the governing spec. Our coating callout checklist covers what to include.
- Mark masking on the drawing. Threads, bores, ground points and mating faces should be called out, not described over the phone.
- Flag galvanized parts and castings. Air, moisture or oil trapped in castings, hot-dip galvanizing and welds can escape during cure and leave pinholes or blisters, so we pre-bake to outgas them. If your parts are going to a galvanizer first, the American Galvanizers Association advises telling the galvanizer the part will be powder coated so they skip the water quench or chromate passivation bath. More in our guide to galvanized parts and castings.
- Tell us about mill scale, laser oxide or rust. These usually call for abrasive blasting, which we quote as part of the coating job.
- Label by part number and quantity. Clear labels on each bin or pallet let counts check in cleanly on both ends of the trip.
Quality and paperwork
On higher-volume programs we follow your QC procedure, and we provide Certificates of Conformance on request. For defense work, we are a subcontractor to primes: we paint to the specification they flow down. We are a small business under NAICS 332812. The defense and government page covers how that works.
Common questions
Do you have a shop in Pueblo?
No. Our only shop is in Colorado Springs, about 45 minutes to an hour north of Pueblo on I-25, depending on where you start. We serve Pueblo-area customers with pickup and delivery arranged per job, and you are welcome to drop parts off at the shop.
Do you run a scheduled delivery route to Pueblo?
No. There is no fixed route or set delivery day. Tell us your quantities, pallet count and dates when you request a quote, and we will set up pickup, delivery or both for that job.
How long does a job take from Pueblo?
Standard jobs typically take about a week once the parts are at our shop. Add the transit on each end, and expect us to confirm the schedule for large or masking-heavy programs at quote time.
Can you handle CARC for a defense subcontractor in southern Colorado?
Yes. We apply QPL-listed CARC materials per MIL-DTL-53072 and paint to the specification your prime flows down. We work as a subcontractor; we are not registered in SAM and do not hold a CAGE code.
Is there a minimum order?
There is a small minimum charge. Small jobs are accepted, but our batch line is most efficient on production runs of hundreds to thousands of parts, which is also where pickup and delivery make the most sense.
How big a part can you coat?
We run a large batch oven that takes parts up to roughly the size of a large cabinet or a long frame. Send us the dimensions and weight and we will confirm fit before you ship anything.